The hurdles to a Frank Caprio political comeback are many: the "shove it" comment will be forever attached to his name and the progressive base of the state's Democratic Party seems unlikely to warm up to a candidate who essentially ran as a moderate Republican.

But if Caprio, the former state treasurer, runs for major office again - and I think he could, perhaps as a Republican - he could face another hurdle.

Senator Jack Reed, who serves on the Appropriations Committee, is in line to become Rhode Island's first chairman of a Senate appropriations subcommitee since John Pastore. He's expected to head up the Interior, Environment, and related Agencies Subcommittee, with budget-writing power over the Environmental Protection Agency, national parks, and National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.

The Day Publishing Co. today announced its intention to enter into a multi-year business partnership with The Providence Journal that would include the production and distribution of both companies' newspaper products.

The partnership plan would include the transfer before April 1 of the printing of The Day newspaper to the Providence Journal's production facilities in Rhode Island.

Austerity is all the rage in Washington these days. See President Obama's State of the Union address and the GOP's response. Seemed like a good time to chat with Brown University political science professor Mark Blyth, who suggests the austerity push is not as virtuous as it may sound. So I've got a Q&A with him in this week's Phoenix

Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, two years away from his re-election battle, has engaged in a deliberate effort, of late, to signal his concern for the state's economic woes - an important effort for a senator whose high-profile battles, on torture and the like, aren't directly connected to his constituents' troubles.

The Kennedy drought in Washington is looking, more every day, like it may be a short-lived affair. Former Rhode Island Representative Patrick Kennedy, whose departure left the capital without a member of the Camelot crew for the first time in 64 years, was on CNN last night touting the prospects of his cousin Joseph Kennedy III, a Cape Cod prosecutor who made a splash recently with a post-Arizona shooting speech on the decline of civic discourse.

In today's Phoenix, I've got an interview with Brown University's hip-hop scholar Tricia Rose. She penned one of the best-known academic treatises on rap music from its early days, Black Noise, and takes a fresh look at the form with Hip-Hop Wars. She's got a provocative view on what is, arguably, the nation's most important cultural force: hip-hop, she argues, is in a creative crisis and is promoting a dangerously narrow view of black American life.

Several of the local blogs are teaming up for a belated holiday bash tonight at Salon, a hipster bar featured in the Phoenix awhile back. Go for the "Creature from the Black Lagoon" pinball machine, if nothing else.

It's official: Congressman David Cicilline has landed posts on the House Small Business and Foreign Affairs committees. These were not his top choices. Early on, he voiced interest in succeeding departing Representative Patrick Kennedy on the powerful Appropriations Committee. That was always a long shot for a freshman and when it became clear that it was not to be, he set his sights on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

Rhode Island NPR affiliate WRNI, which officially named education reporter Elisabeth Harrison its local host of NPR's Morning Edition news show, won't hire a new education reporter to replace her for the foreseeable future.

That means WRNI's complement of five reporters will be reduced to four.

The Morning Edition slot opened up when Boston's WGBH hired away veteran host Robert Seay in September.

WRNI, the local National Public Radio affiliate, has named its education reporter, Elisabeth Harrison, the new local host of Morning Edition - NPR's morning news show. Harrison replaces veteran Morning Edition host Robert Seay, who left the state in September.

The station says it chose Harrison for the job after a national search.